On September 27, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control (TUFFC) published an article in memory of China’s early pioneer of biomedical ultrasonics Prof. Wang Weiqi, who passed away last month.
The full text is shown as below.
In Memory of Wang Weiqi: An Early Pioneer of Biomedical Ultrasonics in China (1939–2022)
Prof. Wang Weiqi passed away on 26 August 2022, in Shanghai, China, at the age of 83 due to a heart attack. He will be remembered as a pioneer of biomedical ultrasonics in China, a highly respected colleague in the ultrasound research community, and an influential role model of perseverance, dedication, and excellence for students and academic peers at Fudan University, Shanghai, his alma mater and academic home since 1956.
Prof. Wang was born in 1939 in Shanghai. He received his postsecondary education at Fudan University from 1956 to 1961 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in physics. Upon graduation, he joined the professorial ranks at Fudan University. He was promoted to Full Professor in 1988 and was conferred the title of Fudan University Chair Professor in 1998. He also worked as a Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo, Japan, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Prof. Wang devoted his life to biomedical ultrasound and had made outstanding contribution to its development. His interest in biomedical ultrasonics stemmed from his early investigations in blood flow measurement technology. He invented China’s first electromagnetic blood flow meter in 1975 before gradually shifting his focus to ultrasonics. In 1976, he devised the first 60-element phased array B-mode ultrasound imaging system in China. In 1982, he pioneered the first double-beam Doppler ultrasound device for quantitative blood flow velocity measurement. Over the next two decades, he continued to lead the development and application of Doppler ultrasound technology and related signal processing solutions in China. Starting around 2005, Prof. Wang extended his research focus to ultrasound-based bone assessment. On this research front, he has made contributions to a variety of topics, such as ultrasound’s complex wave-matter interactions in bone, ultrasound backscatter measurements, parametric mapping, and advanced signal processing methods. Over his remarkable career, he has coauthored more than 350 articles, seven books, and 11 patents together with his graduate students, peers, and collaborators.
Prof. Wang has received numerous research prizes and honors throughout his career. He was elected a Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1999 and a Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Medical Science in 2019. He was awarded the Second Prize of China National Invention in 1985, the AIUM/WFUMB Pioneer Award in 1988, the Second Prize of China Scientific and Technological Invention in 1999, the Second Prize of Science and Technology Progress Award of the Ministry of Education of China in 2016, the Outstanding Contribution Award from the Ultrasonic Medical Branch of Chinese Medical Association in 2009, and the Outstanding Scholar Award honored by Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2010.
Prof. Wang was active in various national and international professional organizations in biomedical ultrasonics. He served as an Associate Editor of several international and domestic journals and had been an Editorial Board Member for multiple journals, including Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, Chinese Journal of Acoustics, Chinese Journal of Scientific Instruments, Chinese Journal of Biomedical Engineering, Chinese Journal of Medical Instrumentation, and Progress in Biomedical Engineering.
Prof. Wang was an inspiring mentor and teacher to students. At Fudan University, he started supervising graduate students to study ultrasonics in 1978. In 1988, he established an ultrasound school to give lessons to many medical doctors specializing in ultrasound in Shanghai on a weekly basis. His philanthropy is also widely appreciated in China. In 2018, in memoriam of Prof. Zhou Yongchang, one of the Chinese pioneers in ultrasound diagnosis who passed away in 2017, Prof. Wang made personal donations to establish the “Changqi Award” to foster research excellence in the Chinese biomedical ultrasound community. Since its establishment, this award has been granted to 26 biomedical ultrasound scholars.
Prof. Wang was not only an outstanding scientist, engineer, teacher, and inventor in biomedical ultrasonics but also a dear friend to many in the biomedical ultrasound community. People around him were always attracted by his kindness, his openness, his cherished smile, and his desire to help the underprivileged people. He will always be in the memory of his family, friends, colleagues, and students.
Authors:
Kailiang Xu: Department of Electronic Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Jianwen Luo: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Kunihiro Chihara: Department of Clinical Engineering, Jikei University of Health Care Sciences, Osaka, Japan
K. Kirk Shung: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Alfred C. H. Yu: Schlegel Research Institute for Aging University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Presented by Fudan University Media Center
